Blockchain Daily News

Edition 146, 09.02.2018

Fans’ Section

After getting hosed earlier in the week, all major cryptocurrencies are solidly in the green.

FAO: This means investors just stopped keeping track of what every bank leader in the world has to say about cryptos and also stopped reacting on various statements. Remember that yesterday I refused to lose my time and comment on the World Bank President’s remarks. My opinion is that this whole new asset class clearly needs a regulatory framework that protects investors and preserves innovation, and sets of regulation are currently under development in various places around the world. Banning it is a different story – clearly an example not to be followed. Comparing a whole new technology and a new asset class with all the bad things in your “book” can do even more harm than banning it. Why do bank leaders react this way, after all? I guess you can find the answer by yourself, since you are getting my newsletter each day, and actually reading it too.

FAO: Yip, we agree with Tyler and Cameron here. This is in fact a major thing. This adds real (“de jure”) legitimacy to a whole new asset class. In case you don’t follow, the “de facto” legitimacy was the launch of bitcoin futures on Cboe and CME.

DNT: Of course, what else can they do? It’s a wise move, as long the regulation will prove useful to create a climate that will allow more safer transactions and a safer environment for the development of cryptos. E-payments and altcoins will have a major role in how businesses and consumers will pay for services.

The Winklevoss twins take a shot at old people who don’t get bitcoin. Tyler Winklevoss, one half of the famous twins, has hit back at the older generation of financiers who have criticized cryptocurrencies, telling that they don’t understand the future of money.

DNT: Oh..welcome to the scene of an inevitable conflict between generations at the frontier of finance. Guess they are right.

FAO: Anyhow, we need to respect the elders. We need to learn about the past in order to secure a safe future. Tyler probably got ahead of himself a bit. But let’s get things straight: “the cryptoverse” is here to stay, and having strong opponents, regarding their age, is a proof of how important it grew in the last years…

Deals & Investments

But investors should not confuse Bitcoin’s bust with blockchain’s brighter future, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence said. As a technology, blockchain will evolve with new applications, increased transaction speeds and improved security, they said.

Cryptocurrencies have been on a jolting ride this year. That’s a good thing in an industry that has captivated everyone from mom-and-pop speculators to Wall Street trading firms, according to Full Tilt Capital.

Exchanges & Trading Venues

Binance has had to continuously refute accusations of a hack since their exchange has unexpectedly gone offline due to server issues.

The time offline was supposed to only last for several hours, but, similarly to the extended Kraken downtime of over two days in January, Binance was back online after two days.

FAO: See why we need regulation? Investors have experienced a lot of frustration these days, I am sure of that. Not bring the FOLE (that’s Fear Of Losing Everything, just invented the term) into discussion…That’s something Coincheck’s users went through…

Barclays s likely to follow other major lenders in the United States in stopping customers from buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with its credit cards, according to an interview with a senior executive at its credit card unit.

“In most cases, verification will now take seconds–not hours,” Coinbase wrote in a blog post. The app, which is the largest crypto exchange in the United States in terms of users, announced plans to implement machine learning technology to verify the identities of new users. The blog post also said that an “additional ID verification vendor” is on call for “increased loads during periods of peak demand.”

BitPeople

There’s just one problem with the list, and it’s directly tied to the problem inherent to the currencies themselves: the market is too volatile to be sustaining, and so are the fortunes of those who have profited from it.

Regulation

Hong Kong’s cryptocurrency exchanges have been warned that regulators are watching them closely after investors complained of practices ranging from market manipulation to misappropriation of assets.

DNT: When I was a teenager, I used to watch the Highlander TV Series…Now, in this series, there were some immortal people “some good, some bad” who fought each other…Besides them, there were also the Watchers, “part of the secret society of men and women who observe and record, but never interfere”…:) The regulators remind me of these watchers. Except the part “never interfere”. So this comparison stops here. Oh, by the way, cryptocurrencies are the immortals, if you catch the idea. 🙂

FAO: I know you have that “We’re watching you watching us” movie line in your mind right now…but joking aside, it all started with a warning in some other jurisdictions…This could be a reason why more and more wealthy people from China are looking to Singapore as a refuge…read below.

Hong Kong’s financial sector is becoming more tangled with mainland China, prompting more and more of China’s rich to turn to Singapore. As a result, Hong Kong is starting to be eclipsed by Singapore as the favorite destination for the wealth of China’s rich and at stake for banks in both cities is a$5.8 trillion bounty. This is what the high-net-worth individuals control in Hong Kong and almost half of it is already offshore, said consulting firm Capgemini SE.

Japan’s National Tax Agency Has Caught onto the cryptocurrency mania gripping the world and investors in digital coins are about to pay the price.

FAO: First regulate it, then tax it…

DNT: Guess this answers also to a legitimate question from a few days ago, in a story that we have covered here (Exchanges & Trading Venues section). The question was Why Is Japan Still In Love With Bitcoin?

Not a moment too soon, America’s biggest banks have moved to ban their customers from using credit cards to buy Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Banks and regulators have been slow to guard against the dangers of the Bitcoin phenomenon — and central banks, in particular, need to move more forcefully.

Crypto insiders are pleased with the overall tone and rhetoric of the SEC and CFTC’s hearing before the Senate banking committee.

“Regulation is going to come for this space, and it just matters that it’s being done in the right way and that regulators are thoughtful about how they enforce regulation,” CoinList co-founder and CEO Andy Bromberg said

Events

The U.S. House of Representatives has a date with blockchain this Valentine’s Day. Two subcommittees of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology – for Oversight as well as Research and Technology – are holding a hearing, entitled “Beyond Bitcoin: Emerging Applications for Blockchain Technology,” on Feb. 14 at 10 a.m. EST.

DNT: Nice date for a “date”! Signs of love on the horizon?

Analysis

On a 90-day basis, the correlation between the daily percent returns of the cryptocurrency and the S&P 500 is 33%, the highest since the cryptocurrency started gaining public attention in January 2016, according to Nick Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.